Google Search: Regulation Yields to Innovation

After an antitrust case is dropped, the company launches the biggest search change in a decade.

By

L. Gordon Crovitz

Oct. 6, 2013 7:10 p.m. ET

Early this year, the Federal Trade Commission made the surprise decision not to bring an antitrust case against Google for its globally dominant search engine. Last week, Google announced the biggest change in how search works in more than a decade. The two events are not unconnected.

Googling increasingly produces answers, not just results. The first generation of search relied on keywords, based on links to Web pages that best matched the words in the search. Google's search gurus have found ways to deliver more relevant...